Customer Reviews

eMachines T6420 Desktop PC

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

My T6420 stopped booting up. Emachines tech support said the motherboard was bad. This is 6 months after the 1 year warranty expired. They told me to call the Emachines replacement parts phone number. Emachines parts department said they do not offer a replacement motherboard.

I bought a 6420 and experienced multiple problems with the motherboard. I had to send it in for service 3 separate times before it was replaced. Immediately the unit would power up dead 25% of the time. They kept trying to just re-brain the hard drive with a new image and saying they could not replicate it. I would go without the computer for 2 weeks at a time for them to do this. Finally they fixed it by replacing the motherboard and all was well until after the warranty ran out. The replacement motherboard failed completely (the prior problem caused it to fail to boot with the fan running at full speed only sometimes). Now it won't boot at all.

These PCs are really junk. My parents have an Emachine too. I was fond of it, but it failed too after 1 year of use. The motherboard died as well. I don't think I'll buy another one from them. They are cheap, but replacing a PC because it dies every year is not cheap.

Buyer beware.

Read the press on this machine its pathetic. Mine died after 18 months (apparently a LONG time for this machine). Unless you enjoy replacing mother boards every year or enjoy getting involved in Class Actions such as the one being taken against the manufacturer because of this problem don't even consider - its ****

The motherboard on my eMachines T6420 died after about eighteen months, and doing some very belated research I'm finding that that's better than average. Google for T6420 motherboard and you'll see what I'm talking about.

During its short life the computer's CD/DVD drive would regularly open and close itself, and there was a period where it would restart itself and not always want to come back on though this problem mysteriously went away. Putting the GTA: San Andreas DVD-ROM in the drive always resulted in the computer resetting itself.

Spend a little more and get a quality computer. I was about to wish fiscal death on the company, but I see now that Gateway bought eMachines two months prior to my writing this. If they improve quality control, great; I'm waiting several years before purchasing anything with the name eMachines remotely comes into consideration. Frankly, I feel like I bought a Hyundai Excel or Scoupe and I'll need to see hard evidence that Gateway/eMachines is making Elantras and Sonatas before shelling out for one again.

Happily working from home one sunny afternoon on my eMachines T6420, I left it running as I took my son to a doctor's appointment. I returned an hour and a half later to a deadMachine. My monitor would not come out of sleep mode and I tried a different monitor with same result. Unplugged everything, replugged everything ... no luck. Took the computer in to work, hoping the IT guys could figure it out: hoping for something as simple as a video card . But no, IT guys said it could be anything: main board, video card, power supply and that, most likely, it would be more expensive to find and fix the problem than to buy a whole new computer.
Argh! I'd call eMachines support, but I'm two months past the one-year warranty and know I won't get anywhere.
I researched eMachines before purchasing and found they had good ratings for a budget PC. But after this, and after having the DVD/CD drive also burn out a few months ago, I cannot recommend eMachines to anyone. I saved up for months for this computer and will not be able to replace it for some time.

I have owned emachines for my past several PCs and they have never died on me. Emachines use top quality parts that can be upgraded. This PC uses socket 939 AMD processors. It has an MSI Nforce410 MicroATX motherboard and a 300watt ATX power supply. These computers are niceely ventilated and easily upgradeable.

Looking at a gateway computer? Grab this. Gateway owns Emachines. If you bought this and went to start>run>"dxdiag" it will show the manufaturer as gateway. This is great PC for a great price

This machine is not my own, it belongs to my customer. I own a computer shop that builds and repairs PCs. My customer has had her T6420 since new, and it stays powered-on 24/7 to allow for nighttime Windows updates and unattended virus scans.

The reason the machine is in the shop for the 3rd time in four years is the single reason it's ever been here: for spyware and trojan infections from her inadvertently clicking the wrong thing and infecting her machine unwittingly. In searching for eMachines drivers, forever a challenge for any eMachines product and the sole reason I suggest AGAINST buying their PCs, I stumbled across this site and was appalled at what I'd read. More on that below.

For my customer, the T6420 has been rock-solid reliable, and I attribute that to the excellent MSI motherboard that the system is based on. Admittedly, the MS7207 motherboard was crafted by MSI per Gateway's/eMachine's specifications so it's not MSI's own motherboard as they would have perhaps crafted it, but I can attest to the quality and reliability of the brand and I owe them some positive press since it's well warranted. I *just* broke the warranty seal on her PC to verify that there is, indeed, the MS-7207 motherboard inside. With a clean install of Windows XP Pro, this machines absolutely flies.

To perhaps make things easier for yourself, when looking for eMachines drivers and you suspect the machine contains an MSI motherboard, or when looking for MSI drivers, using the Internet Explorer browser simply go to [...] and click Download, and let their Live Update service do all of the work for you.

In 15 years of this line of business, I've built about 200 PCs. The one brand that has been the most-reliable to me, in fact 100% reliable, has only been MSI. I've used nearly every motherboard manufacturer along the way and even opt for one of their new boards now and again just to see if they're doing things as good as MSI, which sadly I cannot confirm for you, but I know that building an MSI-based machine will give my customers the greatest satisfaction & reliability, and me the least amount of dissatisfied customers and service calls. Everyone has their own opinion about this, and I'm simply sharing my experience with you.

In summation:
One, I do not like anything about eMachines or what they have become. Their customer support is perhaps some of the worst in the industry, and they do not offer drivers for the machines they create which makes it very difficult for the end-user or the technician working on the machine
Two, MSI is, in this author's opinion, the best in the industry without exception, and at any cost.
Three, and most importantly, please realize that when you're researching something online that you are going to be exposed to more negative remarks/reviews than positive, the reason being that by default we expect something to be great, trouble-free, and absolutely flawless indefinitely. When it fails to meet those criteria, hell has no fury to match someone with an internet connection and some pent-up frustration. Not that it's at all unwarranted, just remember that these people are also not crafting glowing reviews of all of the other products in their lives that are working as expected. It is always frustrating when something disrupts what we are trying to get done, or attempting to rely upon. This is especially true of cars and computers - if you took all of the bad press about these things to heart, those two industries would fail immediately. Realize that for these 5 negative reviews posted here that there are tens of thousands of very satisfied customers that are enjoying their T6420 or VW Jetta or HP Pavilion or Chrysler 300, because it gives them no problems at all - just pure end-user satisfaction. Like they expected. :)

Cheers!
Dan